La Notte

Lidia : I feel like dying because I no longer love you. That’s why I’m desperate. I wish I were old, my life’s devoted to you all. I wish I no longer existed, because I can’t love you. That’s the thought which came to me in the night club, when you were so bored.

Giovanni : But if this is true, if you feel like dying…, it means you still love me.

Lidia : No. it’s only pity. 　　

Giovanni : I never gave you anything, I was completely unaware. I go on wasting my life,l ike a fool…, taking without giving or giving too little. If you mean I haven’t much to give,you may be right. 　　

Lidia : I used to spend afternoons reading in bed. Tommaso would call and find me there. He could have taken me, I wouldn’t have resisted, out of boredom. But he was satisfied to watch me as I read. All those purposeless books. Two hundred pages a day, I read so quickly. 　　

Giovanni : I’ve been selfish. Now I realize that what we give others comes back to us. 　　

Lidia : Do they think their music will improve the day? 　　

Giovanni : Lidia, let’s settle this. Let’s try to hang on to something we are sure of. I love you. I’m sure I’m still in love with you. What more can I say? Let’s go home. 　　

---For a whike of silenent time----

Lidia : When I awake this morning, you were still asleep. As I awake I heard your gentle breathing. I saw your closed eyes, beneath wisps of stray hair…, and I was deeply moved. I wanted to cry out to wake you, but you slept so deeply, so soundly. In the half light your skin glowed with life…so warm and sweet I wanted to kiss it, but I was afraid to wake you, I was afraid of you awake in my arms again. Instead,I wanted something no one could take from me, mine alone…this eternal image of you. Beyond your face I saw a pure, beautiful vision…, showing us in the perspective of my whole life…, all the years to come, even all the years past. This was the most miraculous thing to feel for the first time that you had always been mine. This night would go on for ever…united with your warmth, your thought, your will. At that moment I realized how much I loved you,Lidia.

I wept with the intensity of the emotion. For I felt this must never end…, we would remain like this all our lives…, not only close but belonging to each other…, in a way that nothing could ever destroy, except the apathy of habit, the only threat. Then you wakened and smiling, put your arms around me, kissed me, and I felt there was nothing to fear. We could always be as we were at the moment…bound by strange ties than time and bit.

Giovanni : Who wrote that? 　　 　

Lidia : You did.